New Traffic Incident Reporting Tool for near west side neighborhoods

posted by Harald Kliems | 129sc
April 28, 2016

If you're riding a bike or walking your neighborhood, every once in a while you'll have an encounter with another road user that is less than pleasant. In a few cases, there will be an actual collision and a police report will be filed. But many, more minor incidents, near misses, or rude behavior will go unreported. The Regent Neighborhood Association has created a tool to keep track of these incidents in order to collect data that might pinpoint trouble spots or bad infrastructure.

Writes Charlie Peters, chair of the Streets and Transportation Committee:

"There has been a rash of accidents involving pedestrians and automobiles in the neighborhood recently. Between February 11th and March 15th there were 5 reported cases of pedestrians being hit by automobiles. These were at several locations and due to a variety of circumstances, but in general reflect a serious problem. As you may have read in recent Regent Neighborhood Association newsletters we have formed a streets and transportation committee that has been meeting to develop plans for improved pedestrian and bicyclist safety.

One tool that we have developed is an on-line Traffic Incident Report which provides an opportunity for Regent neighbors to note concerns involving negative, or potentially negative, interactions between pedestrians and/or bicyclists and automobiles. These concerns may include close calls witnessed, infrastructure issues, speed violations, accidents witnessed, etc. In short, if there is anything regarding transportation in the neighborhood that you regard as troubling, please report it using this tool. Results of this tool will be a database that can be used to support improved safety.

This is meant to provide information in addition to, not instead of, concerns reported through more formal means - 911 calls, Alder communication, and use of on-line city of Madison reporting tools.

If you would like to work more closely with the Streets and Transportation Committee please email me. Thanks for helping us make our neighborhood safer.

While this tool was developed for The Regent Neighborhood Association Members, I'd be happy to work with other local neighborhood associations on this effort and have included Dudgeon Monroe and Vilas neighborhood selections at this time."